Grinding machines for mowing machine cylinder blades are known and comprise means for mounting the blade cylinder for rotation about the axis of its mounting shaft; a grinding wheel mounted on guides for traverse movements longitudinally of the blade cylinder; and a so-called finger guide which is mounted beneath the grinding wheel as a support for each blade of the blade cylinder in turn as grinding takes place, the arrangement being such that as a traverse movement of the grinding wheel head takes place, the abutment of the finger guide against the particular blade concerned causes the blade cylinder to rotate in timed relation to the traverse movement of the grinding wheel head and in the appropriate direction according to the direction of traverse of the grinding wheel head. In this way there is ground a constant amount of back relief along the length of the blade concerned.
Such known grinding machines have one particular drawback, this being that they have been unable to "index" the work cylinder around automatically from one blade to another to enable a blade cylinder to be completely relief ground in one operation without the intervention of an operative. It has been necessary for the operative to manually index the work cylinder around to bring each blade in turn into abutment with the finger guide to enable it to be relief ground by the traversing of the grinding wheel head as previously described. This has caused the grinding of a complete blade cylinder to be a slow process and also a somewhat hazardous one for the operative who has to reach into the machine to grasp hold of the work cylinder in close proximity to the grinding wheel which is rotating at high speed.
It is the object of the invention to provide a grinding machine for mowing machine cylinder blades which will be free of the disadvantages referred to above.